The March 2018 column of One Nation’s Mark Latham about the settlement of refugees continues to be current.

Refugee policy has become the ultimate form of virtue signaling. Left-wing elites think they can display their compassion and moral superiority by advocating for open borders. They gather at candle-lit vigils, urging our governments to take in an unlimited number of asylum seekers. Under the Rudd and Gillard Governments, this ended in the tragedy of 2,000 drowned at sea – the greatest humanitarian disaster in Australian history.

I remember a shouting match with my Labor colleague Anthony Albanese after the Tampa incident in 2001. He accused me of representing a racist electorate in Western Sydney that wanted to close our borders to people in need. I told him it had nothing to do with race and everything to do with the rule of law: how suburban Labor voters simply wanted an orderly, merit-based migration system, with no queue jumping.